Page 46 of Everything We Give

I launch my laptop, charge my dead phone, and guzzle the coffee. Fingers poised over the keyboard, I catch my breath and stop to think.What have I done?The past twenty-four hours sink in like photo paper absorbing printer ink and the picture isn’t pretty. I left Aimee high and dry. She’s consumed with work and parenting our daughter and I packed and left.

Smooth move, Collins.

Granted, I planned to leave next week anyhow. But my spontaneous rush to split town earlier has left her with additional days of adjusting her work schedule and planning Caty’s care since I’m not there to watch her in the afternoons. To make matters worse, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. I have five days to cover the assignment before I have to be in Idaho. And once I get there? I could be stuck there for twenty-four hours or a couple of weeks. I can’t help but compare myself to my dad.

He repeatedly left my mom. A last-minute press conference would yank him out of town. A scandal would arise about some multimillion-dollar contract player tampering with equipment. A star rookie safety would be arrested for soliciting a hooker. My dad would leave us at a moment’s notice so he wouldn’t miss any candid photo opportunities he could sell to the news outlets. We needed the money, he’d say as an excuse, leaving me to wonder if that was the only reason he left. He never admitted outright, but I think as much as he loved my mom and wanted to keep her safe, he was also scared of her. He knew how to handle her shifts, by giving her space and letting her be, but I was sure her alters made him uncomfortable. Their personalities and mannerisms were entirely different from the woman he married.

It was during my teen years that my relationship with my dad didn’t become problematic. It became the problem. I didn’t care where he was or when he’d be home. I picked fights, neglected homework, and became a downright belligerent pain in the ass. By the end of sophomore year, I had enough tardy and detention slips to cover my bedroom walls the way bars wallpaper theirs with paper bills. Staying in trouble kept my mind off the very public fact that my mother was in prison and that I was in therapy because of her.

PTSD. That was my psych’s diagnosis. To the outside world, living with a mother diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and an absent father was hell. I always saw it as a warped version of purgatory. I’d pay my dues and one day I’d receive my get-out-of-jail-free card. When that happened, I’d leave Idaho and never look back.

It wasn’t until midway through my junior year and after a couple of suspensions with the threat of expulsion—the black cloud looming over my immediate future—that I got my act together. Mrs.Killion, Marshall’s mom, took me under her wing when my dad asked her to watch over me while he was on contract and traveling with his sports teams. Good thing Mrs.K stepped in when she did, else college would have been out of the picture for one aspiring photographer. She ordered me to sit at her kitchen table until I finished my homework. She then insisted I remain for dinner. It was like this five days a week.

Sure, I could have left at any time. Go home and drink my dad’s beer and play video games. It wasn’t like Mrs.K tied me to the chair and held a gun to my head. I wanted to be there. For the first time since my mom had left, someone cared.

Therapy helped me process the years I lived with Mom. But it was Mrs.K, God rest her soul, who restored my confidence in myself.

My phone vibrates, charged enough to power on. Notifications blow up my screen. I open the last message from Aimee and read through the ones she sent during my flight. She isn’t mad about my leaving. I sag into the deep curve of the chair back, thankful she hasn’t banished me to the old sofa in the garage. Damn, I love that woman.

It’s predawn in California. She’s still asleep and Caty’s most likely with her, sprawled on my side of the bed where I’ve known her to sleep when I’m out of town on extended trips. I text Aimee rather than calling like she asked, else I’ll wake them both. I let her know that I’ve safely landed. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later. Next, I e-mail Al Foster asking about the assigned writer and when he’s expected to arrive.

I power through the rest of my e-mails, then launch my browser, ready to rock ’n’ roll with the hunt, my determination to locate my mom renewed. My hands hover over the keyboard, fingers twitch, and I do ...

Nothing.

Nada. Zero. Zilch.

Once again, I croak.

I slam closed my laptop.

Outside the large window beside me, planes take off and land. Baggage trams loop the tarmac like Disney World’s PeopleMover. Inside, over the speakers, flights are announced and passengers are called to the gates.

During high school, I despised my mom for the embarrassment she caused me. While my friends’ mothers cheered them on at our track meets and football games, my mother sat in prison.

Anger and resentment fueled my hate. But in college, I fell for a woman who reminded me in appearance and temperament of the Sarah side of my mother.

Eventually, my rage reduced to a simmer and resentment moved aside, making room for regret. I should have tried harder to understand her illness. I should have insisted more often and despite my mom’s objections that my dad force her to get the help we all knew she needed. My therapist often reassured me that what happened with my mom was not my fault. Yeah, well, she didn’t read the court transcript from her trial.

Come on, Collins. Man up.

There’s a reason I left early for Spain. I might as well make use of my time while waiting for my next flight.

I scratch at the scruff on the underside of my jaw and transfer the laptop perched on my knees to the low table at my feet. I Google for the search engine Erik told me about, the one programmed to search only for people. Erik’s ex-girlfriend had moved out of state and in with a man she’d met on a business flight to New York. He was about to go into obsessed-ex-boyfriend stalker mode until I knocked some sense into him, a literal thwack on the back of his head. I plugSarah Collinsinto the search field and select “entire USA” from the drop-down menu. I hit Enter and wait. A list of more than twenty-five Sarahs displays. Way too many. I edit my search parameters to include Sarah’s middle name: Elizabeth. The engine drops three Sarah Elizabeth Collinses residing in the United States on my screen. One in Virginia, another in Utah. The third? She’s in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Viva Las Vegas.

That’s her. It’s got to be.

And it kills me she never traveled that far.

A knot forms inside my stomach, hard and sour at the base of my sternum. Has she been living in Vegas the entire time? Lower cost of living. No state taxes. Plenty of questionable employment opportunities for a woman to fall into with a record and mental illness. It makes sense, assuming that’s her.

Doubt creeps in, a burglar lurking along the recesses of my mind, thieving what inkling of hope I have left. It could be another Sarah Elizabeth Collins, for all I know. My mother could be anywhere, phone and address unlisted.

But this Sarah has a number.

I reach for my phone. My hand shakes so badly I almost drop it. I tap out the number and the phone rings once, twice. On the third ring, a recording picks up. The greeting is garbled, a woman’s voice, and I can’t tell if it’s my mother’s. I haven’t heard her voice since I was fourteen and memories aren’t always honest.

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